NCI's Plans and Priorities for Cancer Research identifies training of new cancer scientists as one of its "most important challenges," and emphasizes the need for increased involvement of racial and ethnic minorities in cancer research careers. Increasing minority participation in research careers has also been a major priority in public health, an interdisciplinary field whose contributions to cancer prevention and control have been significant, and largely unique. Because a more diverse public health work force can better understand and serve the needs of diverse communities, well-trained minority public health researchers are needed to ensure improvements are made in eliminating health and cancer disparities. We propose a two-year pre-doctoral education program to prepare African American graduate students in public health to help eliminate cancer disparities through cancer prevention and control research. The program consists of five main elements. For students: (1) special coursework in understanding and eliminating cancer disparities; (2) mentored experiential learning in cancer prevention and control research and policy; (3) mentored independent research; and, (4) professional network-building with an interdisciplinary group of African American scholars from a national pool of researchers whose work addresses cancer and/or disparities. For faculty: (5) skill building in cross-cultural mentoring. To enhance future adoption of the program by other institutions, these program components will be designed for dissemination and the proposal identifies specific products and mechanisms for distribution. The School of Public Health and Graduate School at Saint Louis University are strongly committed to this program, and have pledged 85% tuition scholarships for students involved. [unreadable] [unreadable]